


i've been up nights making you my god

by kevystel



Series: with someone so true [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Domestic, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Loneliness, M/M, Podfic Available, Relationship Study, Viktor POV, viktor is not used to emotional honesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 09:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8527819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kevystel/pseuds/kevystel
Summary: The flight is twelve hours and Yuuri sleeps the whole time, head on Viktor’s shoulder, hand curled in Viktor’s jacket pocket underneath their shared blanket, earbuds buzzing a quiet insect harmony in the space between their throats. Viktor snores. Yuuri drools.(Or, Viktor Nikiforov is very much in love and doesn't know how to deal with it)





	

**Author's Note:**

> i know viktor’s name is supposed to be spelled with a c but he’s. he’s viktor in his own head ok. bear with me here
> 
> title from fire with fire by night terrors of 1927

It’s cold outside, though not too cold; and there’s rain glittering against the windows. Viktor watches for a while, tongue between his teeth. He’s startled from his reverie when Yuuri comes up behind him and wraps both arms around Viktor’s waist.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Yuuri says, quiet.

‘How to take Makkachin for his walk today.’

Yuuri hums, his lips close to Viktor’s ear. He’s rounding out in the off-season, and the softness of his belly, at Viktor’s back, is very close. Very warm. Viktor leans into it.

‘You can take him out later.’

‘Okay,’ Viktor agrees. ‘Make dinner?’

Yuuri makes a soft, exasperated sound in the back of his throat because Viktor hasn’t touched the stove in weeks, but he goes. Viktor will join him in the kitchen later. There’s plenty of time.

They moved in together half a year ago. Viktor speaks enough Japanese by now to converse fluently with Yuuri’s parents; there is no difference, as far as he can tell, in the way they treat their _de facto_ son-in-law. There is not much of a change for Viktor and Yuuri, who are used to spending most of their time together anyway. He was always Vicchan to Yuuri’s parents, and Yuuri has always been Yuuri: entirely beloved.

The windows of their apartment are broad and cool. The rink is ten minutes’ walk away, and there is another fifteen minutes between them and the inn and the hot springs, Yuuri’s family — just enough distance. Not too much. Viktor likes his privacy. There are four lamps in their bedroom, and Yuuri’s glasses curled snugly between the matryoshka dolls on the desk, and suitcases by the door eternally half-open. It is not quite so spacious as his studio apartment in St. Petersburg. It is a lot more like home.

* * *

Yuuri crawls into bed beside him and tucks his face into the hollow of Viktor’s neck. ‘It’s cold,’ he says, breath warming the pillow.

‘Not so cold as it would be in Russia.’

‘Do you miss it?’

‘What?’

‘Russia.’ Yuuri, blind as a newborn without his glasses, gropes vaguely in the direction of the desk for a few seconds before giving up and leaving it to Viktor to turn out the light. Yuuri sighs a long comfortable sigh and drapes one arm over Viktor, burying his face in Viktor’s shoulder, solid and sure. Their fingers find each other. Their legs are tangled together under the warm weight of the blankets. Viktor’s breath hitches. He is still not used to this.

‘Hmm? No.’

Yuuri catches the pause; being Yuuri, he doesn’t comment on it. He merely hums and presses an absent kiss to Viktor’s jaw and is asleep in minutes. 

* * *

‘I do not know where I’d be without you,’ Viktor says, as Yuuri is doing warm-up stretches behind the rink before practice.

Yuuri, who now listens almost incessantly to Europop after living with Viktor, takes his earbuds out. ‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

Yuuri blinks and turns back to his exercises. He is fully absorbed: hair in his eyes, a small wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows as he glances down at the pudge of his abdomen which cushions, smoothly, the sweep of Viktor’s palm under the edge of Yuuri’s shirt whenever the thought occurs to Viktor. Irresistible. His eyelashes hit his cheek as he bends; the light glances off his forehead, his cheekbones. His movements are lean and graceful.

* * *

In 2017, Yuuri is assigned to the Trophée de France. His choice of music is, as usual, uniquely Yuuri. Viktor is enchanted. The flight is twelve hours and Yuuri sleeps the whole time, head on Viktor’s shoulder, hand curled in Viktor’s jacket pocket underneath their shared blanket, earbuds buzzing a quiet insect harmony in the space between their throats. Viktor snores. Yuuri drools.

Yuuri doesn’t want to leave the rink for long, at first. He’s afraid he’ll get distracted. But Viktor wants to spoil Yuuri, so they go: out into the grimy, gleaming streets of Paris, their coat collars turned up to their chins, stopping to clap for the buskers. Viktor’s French is terrible and Yuuri’s even worse. Viktor eats escargot, a lot of it. Yuuri takes his hand on the pavement outside the restaurant and does not let go.

Phichit Chulanont isn’t there, which leaves Yuuri slightly disappointed. But they Facetime each other on that first night in the hotel, of course — Yuuri, nervously excited, smiling into his phone screen, saying things like _and this is my view from the balcony_ and _look at the towels!_ Yuuri doesn’t bat an eyelash at Viktor calmly undressing for bed in the background till Phichit takes notice, with unmistakable glee. Viktor is nothing if not a performer. He’s always happy to please.

The competition is exactly as Viktor expected. He navigates the sea of hawk-eyed reporters and camera flashes with practised ease, palm steady at the small of Yuuri’s back. He sizes up Yuuri’s rivals in a glance, their twinkle-eyed determination, their well-known habits and weaknesses; he meets his old rinkmates, sleekly contemptuous in their red-and-white jackets. The game has narrowed to deplorable limits now that Russia’s hero has latched on to Katsuki Yuuri. _Come back to skating, Vitya,_ they all tell him. Viktor smiles pleasantly. Yuuri beats them all by a comfortable margin of some twenty points.

* * *

When the banquet is over they gather at a quaint, stone-warm café down the cul-de-sac for their own cosy after-party. Nobody is quite sure why Viktor’s there; the other coaches have gone back to the hotel, after all. Somehow Viktor has wedged himself in among them. It is something to do with how Guang Hong didn’t manage to take his yearly photo with Viktor at the banquet just now and it looks like he never will, for he’s dozing on the table, cheek squashed against Leo’s wrist. Viktor is a master of getting himself into situations where he doesn’t belong — all it takes is his natural charm of thick eyelashes and high cheekbones, of sheer audacity and the name he has made for himself.

Beyond the fogged-up glass of the windows, it is nearly midnight. Yuuri keeps blinking and rubbing his eyes, catching himself in a yawn only when Yurio, smirking, snaps a picture from across the table. Jean-Jacques has taken the seat next to Yuuri, and Viktor lounges opposite, blandly deciphering with a pencil this evening’s edition of the magazine crossword.

‘It’s “brouillard”,’ Jean-Jacques offers helpfully, after Viktor has been staring at the same clue for about five minutes.

‘Ah!’ says Viktor as he fills it in. ‘Thank you.’

Over the rim of his water bottle, Yurio snorts. ‘You’re losing your touch.’

Yuuri says mildly, ‘Isn’t it past your bedtime?’ and Yurio bristles like a cat. Viktor stretches and stands and goes to retrieve the menus from the counter. It has not escaped his notice, Yuuri’s slight discomfort around the other skaters, nor how much more respect Yuuri ought to command at this point. However, Viktor likes the fact that Yuuri seems to have many friends; it is entirely deserved. It just might take Yuuri a while to realise that.

In the meantime, Viktor is shameless enough to tag along whenever he can get away with it. Anyway, he enjoys being around people like Christophe and Georgi. They make Viktor look relatively normal.

‘Still in your honeymoon period, I see,’ Georgi is saying to Yuuri when Viktor returns with the menus, along with the waitress to take their drink orders. ‘Basing your theme this year around Viktor, _again_ — you are so young.’

‘Which part of you thinks that?’ Viktor asks. ‘Is it the same part that decided to make your whole last season about your ex-girlfriend, and still lose?’

‘Viktor!’ says Yuuri. Viktor, almost repentant, but not quite, folds himself back into his seat and settles down to studying the range of alcoholic beverages.

They take the Métro back to the hotel and — by a crazy stroke of luck — run into one of Yuuri’s old college classmates, now working in Paris. Viktor, who has had his hand on Yuuri’s drowsy elbow all through the train ride, detaches himself smoothly from Yuuri’s side and goes to stand next to Yurio instead, as their voices reverberate in the near-empty station.

‘Yuuri! Everybody is so glad to see you on TV doing so well, did you check the group chat — oh!’ as she spots him. ‘Can I get a photo with your Viktor?’

Jean-Jacques’ eyebrows rise. Leo and Guang Hong, those two predictable children, nearly trip over themselves in delight. Yurio raises his eyes to the ceiling. Viktor slips an arm around the woman and winks at the camera.

* * *

Minako is possibly the only person who dares to face down Viktor. He walks with Yuuri to her ballet studio, sometimes — spends the day wandering through the streets of this sleepy affectionate town, eating alone at a ramen stall at midday, listening to the calling of the seagulls and the fainter music of the waves and fishing-boats, half-drunk and content. He thinks very highly of Minako; she loves Yuuri, in her way; Viktor _adores_ Yuuri.

‘Don’t you throw this away,’ she warns.

Viktor smiles. He would never. It’s not like he has anywhere else to go.

* * *

‘Ah, Viten’ka,’ says Yuuri, ‘you can’t do that —’

‘Yes I can.’

Yuuri leans against the doorframe and watches in a mixture of amusement and bewilderment as Viktor coolly sets about putting up the dozen or so posters of Yuuri that he got this morning.

‘You should sign one of these, you know, to practise.’

Yuuri’s flush goes all the way to his hairline. It’s adorable. His ears are pink. He stutters — a rare occurrence, now — stumbling over the foreign syllables: ‘ _Vitya._ ’

‘Hmm?’ says Viktor, indulgent, licking his finger to peel the next poster off the top of the stack. He glances over at Yuuri in the doorway, reading his unspoken protests, and asks: ‘Why not?’

‘I-It’s _embarrassing_.’

‘I don’t see why.’ Viktor reaches for the pair of scissors on the table, to cut another piece off the roll of double-sided tape. ‘Any self-respecting figure skating fan would be proud to have merchandise of the two-time GPF champion in their home. And I’m a big fan.’

Yuuri buries his face in his hands. Viktor drops the tape and goes to touch him, thinking that Yuuri is serious, and if so he’ll put the posters away. But when Yuuri lowers his hands he’s smiling and his eyes are wet and bright.

‘I had. I had so many of you, when I was younger,’ Yuuri admits. He comes a little further into the room and touches the thick, shiny paper with something like wonder. ‘I left them behind. At my parents’ house.’

‘I know. I’ve known since last year. I am so angry at you for never letting me see them, I don’t think I will ever forgive you.’

Yuuri laughs. His voice is still a bit shaky; he takes his glasses off and wipes them on the hem of his shirt, which is one of Viktor’s old V-necked black practice shirts, worn threadbare and fraying at the sleeves. ‘I don’t know how I’ll live with seeing my own face everywhere in the guest room.’

‘ _Well_ ,’ Viktor says, ‘you are my phone wallpaper, and you are in my Instagram profile picture, and —’

Yuuri makes a faint whimpering noise.

‘I thought Makkachin was your wallpaper.’

‘That was long ago.’

Yuuri’s tone goes sharp and mildly horrified. ‘You didn’t replace him with me, did you?’

‘No. Now it’s you holding Makkachin.’

‘You’re too much,’ Yuuri murmurs, his eyes soft. He brushes his fingertips over Viktor’s knuckles helplessly.

Viktor’s Instagram bio still contains the line _With #YuriKatsuki_ , followed by a string of hearts, as it has done for about a month. A quick check of the hashtags tells him that his fans, and Yuuri’s, have certainly noticed. Yuuri has not noticed. He hasn’t told Yuuri. He doesn’t think he ever will.

‘You guys are gross,’ Yurio groans when he sees the framed photos beside the television. Viktor spoons katsudon into three bowls and waits. He predicts that Yurio’s reaction, when Yurio discovers that the guest room where he will sleep is plastered top to bottom with posters of Yuuri, will be worth it. He is correct.

* * *

‘Do you know,’ Yuuri says. He’s sitting crosslegged on one of the benches beside the rink, scrolling through his Instagram feed. ‘I missed out on my first chance to take a picture with you, last year.’

‘What!’ says Viktor in perfect, surprised innocence. He finishes lacing up his skates and straightens. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before? When was this?’

Yuuri glances up from his phone and pushes his glasses further up his nose. His cheeks are faintly pink. ‘At the Grand Prix Final when I came in last, you know. You saw me looking and you asked if I wanted a photo — I just turned around and left.’

He leans over the barrier as Viktor skates over to him, blades scraping cleanly across the ice. Yuuri’s holding Viktor’s Makkachin tissue box in his lap, and the set of his mouth is so tender. He doesn’t flinch when Viktor reaches out to loop his arms over Yuuri’s shoulders and cup the back of Yuuri’s head, pulling him in close. Viktor is not a particularly introspective person, so he doesn’t bother tracing the thread of him and Yuuri and _Yuuri-and-Viktor_ back through the past months, trying to tease out the bright point where it began, the dizzying edge of the precipice, the moment he looked at Yuuri and thought:

Oh.

 _Oh_.

‘What, really?’ Viktor asks, tucking his chin on top of Yuuri’s head; breathing in the heady scent of his sweat, the softness of his hair tickling Viktor’s jaw. ‘I don’t remember.’

He does, of course. People have looked at Viktor extending a hand to them and walked away from him perhaps twice in his life. These are the things he keeps to himself.

* * *

Viktor makes a trip to Russia to visit his family. Yuuri accompanies him to the airport, breath misting in the frosty air; his gloved fingers curl over the handle of Viktor’s suitcase. Patient. Protective. This is the first time they’ve ever been apart for longer than a few days. Viktor is not worried. He intends to have his belongings in St. Petersburg packed up and flown to Japan as soon as he can arrange it, and he’s leaving Makkachin with Yuuri for the duration of the visit. Makkachin loves Yuuri, perhaps even more than he loves Viktor himself, which Viktor thinks is very wise of Makkachin.

Just outside the departure hall, Viktor sits down on a bench to retie his shoelaces. Automatically he glances around the pale cold expanse of the airport to make sure nobody is watching, then squeezes Yuuri’s fingers briefly. They have already exchanged their goodbyes, and checked Viktor’s plane ticket, and looked up the difference in timezones. Viktor is thinking of growing his hair out again, but he’s twenty-eight; his features are no longer as delicate as they were when he wore his hair long, it would no longer match so well as when he was sixteen. It would stick to Yuuri’s mouth when they slept, in any case.

‘I love you,’ Yuuri tells him, absent-mindedly leaning down to press a kiss to the top of Viktor’s head.

‘Okay,’ says Viktor, terrified. ‘ _Dasvidaniya_.’

It’s a bright chilly morning when he touches down in St. Petersburg, and the record needle of Yuuri’s _IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou_ is prickling on repeat in his head when he bursts through the door of his apartment. Viktor abandons his suitcase beside the door and toes off his socks and shoes, heedless of where they land; he drops onto the sofa and dials Yuuri’s number. His heart is pounding. The apartment feels curiously empty without Makkachin lying across his knees, and a pristine tongue of sunlight cuts through the curtains — illuminating the dust that rises from the unswept floorboards to greet him. Viktor keeps his curtains closed, careless of his neighbours.

‘Yuuri?’

Yuuri’s breathing is familiar and warm. Over the line he can hear the question mark twisting into it, the muddy, just-woke-up tint of Yuuri’s slow, slurred vowels; heavy-eyed and flushed with sleep-heat, languorous, erotic.

‘Vitya?’ He hears Yuuri’s breath rushing out, in the spattering of static. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘I love you,’ he says, and then he says it again in Japanese, and in Russian, and then once more in English for good measure.

‘I know,’ Yuuri says. ‘It’s four in the morning.’

‘Ah… well, go back to sleep.’

On the other end, the pillows rustle as Yuuri sits up in bed. ‘Well, I’m awake now… How was your flight?’

‘It was okay. I think —’ He puts his feet up on the armrest of the sofa. ‘I think I drank too much champagne.’

Yuuri’s snort comes as a little huff of breath. ‘You would.’ There’s a soft unconscious sigh and Yuuri says, quieter now: ‘I miss you already.’

‘I’ll be back soon.’

‘Yes.’

* * *

At Skate Canada Yuuri has another attack of nerves and Viktor, carefully controlling his frustration, marches him out of the building and lets him sit with his forehead resting on his knees for a good twenty minutes or so before going on the rink.

This will be his last season, Yuuri says. He’s sure of it. He says this every year. It might be true this year, except that Viktor is there to convince Yuuri that _you are good enough, you are magnificent, you are loved_ ; it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t believe it; Viktor believes it enough for both of them.

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Yakov says. Viktor smiles. He doesn’t stop smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell with me on [tumblr](http://www.kevystel.tumblr.com) (this was written after ep 6 so it might be jossed by future episodes idk)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [with someone so true series by kevystel [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8685301) by [Rhea314 (Rhea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Rhea314)




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